Perhaps in one of the few mistakes of his illustrious career, Gregory Rabassa, mistranslates a key passage in Jorge Franco’s Rosario Tijeras. What makes this passage this mistake significant—and the mistake even more regrettable—is that it is perhaps the only moment in the text that attempts to provide a historical explanation for the violence and anomie depicted in the novel’s pages. The original passage is as follows: La pelea de Rosario no es tan simple, tiene raíces muy profundas, de mucho tiempo atrás, de generaciones anteriores; a ella la vida le pesa lo que pesa este país, sus genes arrastran con una raza de hidalgos e hijueputas que a punta de machete le abrieron camino a la vida, todavía lo siguen haciendo; con el machete comieron, trabajaron, se afeitaron, mataron y arreglaron las diferencias con sus mujeres. Hoy el machete es un trabuco, una nueve milímetros, un changón. Rabassa’s translation is follows: Rosario’s fight isn’t so simple, it has very deep roots, from long ago, from earlier generations. Life weighs on her with the weight of this country, her genes drag along a race of sons of plenty and sons of bitches who with the blade of machete cleared the pathways of life. They’re still doing it. They ate with the machete, they worked, shaved, killed and settled differences with their wives with a machete. Today the machete is a shotgun, a nine-millimeter, a chopper.
While I have some other minor quibbles with the translation—for instance, I think that mujeres in the last line of the passage should have been simply translated as women—my main objection to Rabassa’s rendition is the substitution of “sons of plenty” for hidalgos. Rabassa’s choice is surprising since hidalgo is on occasion even included in English language dictionaries. For instance, m-w.com defines the word as “a member of the lower Spanish nobility.” The metaphoric “sons of plenty” in his version are, in the original, the poorest strata of the Spanish nobility who came to the Americas in order to find the riches that their self-esteem and their social ideology told them was their right. It is possible, therefore, to see in the original an attempt at tracing the violence of the Colombian 1990s, indeed the whole of the tragic history of violence in Colombia, to the Spanish conquest.
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I find it so sad how things can be lost in translation-- two totally different meanings can be derived depending on the word choice!! I certainly don't get the same meaning or intention out of Rabassa's interpretation than with the use of the word "hidalgo" in Franco's original text...so, so sad.
ReplyDeleteI see the error of Rabassa's translation in the sense that he chooses to translate a word, which in Spanish has direct cultural significance, to a metaphorical phrase. however, the fact that it is one word in the original text leads me to believe Franco did not develop the colonial effect in the narrative. "Hidalgo" over "sons of plenty" would certainly provides us readers with the ability to read the colonial into the narrative, but it does not seem so egrigious an error given that nowhere else in the novel is it adressed
ReplyDeleteI think Peter makes a good point. Although there is a cultural significance to the word because it is not something that is ever addressed again I can't see Franco being to upset that the cultural significance didn't make it to the novels English reading audience.
ReplyDeleteI still think it's a mistake, precisely because it's the one moment in which Franco attempts to explain Colombia's violence. However, I agree that the novel as a whole refuses to investigate in any depth the causes, whether sociological or psychological, for the events described. Perhaps this is the difference between the Boom novel which attempts to incorporate historical and sociological reflection within its narrative, and the McOndo writing.
ReplyDeleteI guess I can see the reasoning for changing it, to be the devil's advocate:
ReplyDeleteIf it's a well-known word for a Colombian audience, I can understand why it would be translated into a more familiar word in English, even if it doesn't carry the same historical meaning.
On the other hand, "plenty" doesn't seem to be the right word for the translation. As others have pointed out, "sons of plenty" has a particular connotation in English which doesn't suit the meaning of the original Spanish phrase.
It is a tricky problem, and I think another solution is in order...